Tell you like this. Play a card. Write you home on the car. Coin for your hearts. I was once you. At a different dinner. Where you went. I remember Yui. We played horses. You will die.

It starts with noticing someone else’s wristwatch, and before you know it, you’re a regular time-traveler.

“All of a sudden—it certainly wasn’t gradual—Magahet’s act of graciousness dissolved away into a cheap spectacle, and for no reason in particular.”

She was the waitress from hell. I had the chicken cacciatore and some kind of sparkling water that she’d recommended. To be honest, I don’t mean to say that she was spiteful or malicious or full of vitriol; I’m merely stating fact when I say that she was from hell. Her name was Janine Hensworth, and she was renting an apartment that, she told me, was literally in hell. To get there she took a twenty-seven minute elevator ride. The rent on her apartment was wicked cheap, she said, but the screams of the damned and accursed sometimes kept her up at nights. Had she considered sound-proofing, I asked?

I left my heart in Plano, Texas. Nothing turned out like I’d expected it to. I paid for a safe deposit box, a 5″ by 10″ by 22″ receptacle. I went to Plano because I’d heard they had an organ discount. Turns out I was wrong, but I paid for the box anyway. After all, I had to keep my heart somewhere. Plano seemed as good as any place else.

1. They’re everywhere, you know. All around us. Ready to close in on us at any moment, gnash us in their teeth like giant mice. This isn’t a story about giant mice, though. Oh, sure, there are giant mice involved, but that’s not the focus of the story. No, not at all. So naturally, I’m […]

Everyone wanted to watch through hushed windows, through closed blinds; wanted a glance at that thing rolling down the street before it was dusty artefact of history and importance – but not too much of a look. The future of the parade. And the last one, probably. Millions of people watching, cheering, drinking. More, less. […]

0. / 5. First of all / The End. The feeling in the pit of my stomach, working its uneasy way to my throat, wasn’t from some glance at mortality. Part of it may have been the terrible omelet I’d eaten for breakfast, but even that didn’t cover the entirety of the feeling. The feeling […]